Glossary

This explains some of the words you might hear doctors or other adults use when talking about migraine...

• Abdominal migraine: for some young migraineurs, especially younger children, tummy pain is the main symptom. As they get older this may decrease and headache becomes the main symptom

• Acute treatment: this is medicine that is given to relieve a migraine attack when it actually happens

• Alternative treatments: see complementary therapies

• Analgesics: drugs that take away pain and can also be called 'acute' medications

• Aura: can happen about 30 minutes before the main symptoms (headache, tummy pain etc.). Aura symptoms can include flashing lights or zigzag patterns in front of the eyes, pins and needles or numbness in the arms and legs, being clumsy or not being able to speak properly

• Blood vessels: these are the tubes which carry the blood all around the body. There are 3 types, arteries, capillaries and veins

• Complementary therapies: (also called alternative treatments) treatments that are not usually provided by your doctor but by other specially qualified people. These treatments aim to help your body relax or to heal itself so that you feel better generally and don't have migraine any more

• Dehydration: is when you lose too much water from your body through sickness, sweat, or diarrhoea. It can also be caused by not drinking enough water / soft drinks

• Diagnosis: when the doctor tries to find out what is wrong with a person by examining them and listening to their symptoms

• Digestive system: the parts of your body that break down the food you eat

• Drugs: are chemicals used to treat illnesses / conditions

• Genetic: means it runs in families

• Hypersensitivity: when light, smells or sounds bother people much more than normal, for example they might need sunglasses even on a dull day. They might not like to be touched or the things they touch feel different (warm water might feel very hot)

• Migraine clinic: a specialist centre where doctors and nurses are experts in migraine

• Neurological: concerning the nervous system of the body, especially the brain

• Neurotransmitters: chemicals that help to send messages through the nerves in your body

• Postdrome: the time just after a migraine when people still don't feel quite back to normal. It is sometimes also called the recovery phase

• Preventative medication: medicine which you take every day to try to stop migraines happening. This is sometimes called prophylactic treatment

• Prodrome: symptoms can begin up to two days before a migraine and are a sign that a migraine may be about to happen. During this time you may want to eat certain foods, feel tired or feel excited

• Research: finding out more, investigation to establish the facts

• Symptoms: the signs that show the doctor someone has an illness or disease

• Threshold: a point after which a migraine will occur

• Throbbing: often used to describe the pain of migraine. It means pounding, pulsating or like the banging of a drum

• Treatment: the care or medicine to try to make an illness better

• Triggers: things that cause a migraine to start

• Triptans: a group of medications specially developed to treat migraine attacks